This is a pretty solid lineup. I'm not on the Zellweger hate train here.

Clarkson wins for me. Some of the tics that prejudice me against some of her performances (she's like a slightly looser, more versatile Joan Cusack to me) work in this context, and it is mainly her discreet building of character that makes the ending of this otherwise quaint film so powerful.

Zellweger gets kudos for actually injecting some life into the bloated wreckage of Cold Mountain: if she's over the top, it's only because everyone else is acting (and directing) on 'ludes. She was funny and engaging for me, and in the scenes regarding her father she tapped into a rich pathos. I have no problem with this win.

Aghdashloo gets to play a collection of blue notes so lacking in narrative cohesion that her arc has more in common with a fashion line of matching mourningwear than a real character. That being said, she suffers incredibly effectively - if only she had a role to play!

Harden, on the other hand, creates a dramatic arc where one assumes there wasn't one, giving shape to a real woman with real pain and real needs. It is strong, unshowy work, but more the calling card of an impressive craftsman than a performance worthy of end-of-year critical isolation.

Holly Hunter's film I saw when it came out - I remember its big draw being that it was written by a teenager, and it shows. I doubt a mother as spineless as Hunter's character exists, and the problems she has to face as a performer here really are the fault of a script that doesn't know whether to treat the character with respect or pity or some weird combination of both. That being said, she is as solid as we've come to expect from her. I'm a bit surprised thinking of the critical trajectory this performance took, though.

I, unlike the majority here, supported and still endorse Zellwegger's nod. A case of bad taste? Maybe, but I know for sure that had I been an Academy member I would have suffered from that case of sorry-you-lost-not-only-last-year-but-two-years-in-a-row feeling. I liked Cold Mountain... I thought it was better than Seabiscuit and was expecting it to be a Best Picture nominee. A minor achievement from Minghella, specially after The Talented Mr. Ripley, but I just enjoyed it. Zellwegger's role was showy and as someone mentioned, she was kind of amusing. Miscast? Couldn't know considering I haven't read the source material but I think she was a very understandable nominee. The sentimentalism alone was a big deal and her performance wasn't that bad (my opinion, right?) so the thing was done... even months before the film's release, she was a sure, almost locked nominee (even if you were among the people considered her a bad performance, you most likely knew she was a sure thing). Now, a win is a different thing... I was expecting, with all my heart someone could prevent a win for her...

And that being said I liked the other 4 nominated actresses.

Gay Harden might be the one I like the least but I think part of the problem with her is that everything in Mystic River seems so over-hard and very over-excruciating that it must have been a really hard task to infuse some humanity and credibility to this people. For my money, Linney, out of the whole cast, is the one that actually does this and she does it in an better-effortless way. So Marcia comes fourth in my list.

By the time I catched Pieces of April (as recently as 2 years ago) I wasn't familiar with Clarkson's work: I have a hard time remembering her apparently loved (here) turn in Far from Heaven, a film that is not my cup of tea with the exception of its score and Quaid. I do remember though her tiny but memorable bit in The Green Mile. I enjoyed Pieces of April as I could have enjoyed some minor TV film and of course she shines in it, but I guess it is not a hard thing when you're this character-actress given a not so demanding role with this unremarkable (and at times annoying) cast. Her car scene is a must-see though.

Hunter is really solid in Thirteen. It wasn't until a second view of it that I realize her so-called lack of ark someone mentioned here, the fact that her character is an extreme form of sidekick character that goes nowhere: she's just a mom... but she creates a very human and believable one. I like what The Original BJ said about her performance.

And finally there's Shoreh. For me the outstanding performance from this list. The thing that annoys me about Zellweger's win doesn't have anything to do with her acting but with the fact that she beated a clearly superior performance. Shoreh is haunting, heart-breaking, and perfectly cast. Kingsley is a great presence on film, and being able to be not only at his stature but being even better (I find her the emotional center of the film) is a thing I wasn't expecting. Even when I don't compare her to her co-star, her work itself is both a pleasure (as watching great acting always is) and a deep pain (considering all the sad things and the fear and the suffering and the fury she conveys with just one look, an eyesight, a suttle movement of her lips). She gets my vote... one of the worst case of robbed deserving performance.

As a final note, there were a few performances, at the very least as deserving as the actual nominees, that might have made the list including the already mentioned Thompson, Bolger (Sarah), and to a minor degree Portman (minor considering the length of it) and Connelly in House (same thing, very few time). I'll throw two names that I think nobody has mentioned: Marie-Josée Croze in Les Invasions Barberes (a film I'n not fan of but she haunted me months after I saw it) and Christina Ricci in Monster. When I saw Monster (which I did considering the big word on Theron's performance and ended up disappointed) I remember having thought that Ricci was at least as memorable as Theron and that Theron getting all those accolades with Ricci being ignored was just unfair. If Theron could win an Academy Award for that, then Ricci should have gotten two. Wihout big tricks (no fake teeth, no enlargement therapy) she created the real/apparent monster of the film... and I liked that.

I agree that Zellweger´s performance was a fiasco and that Clarkson was nominated for the wrong movie. I´m going to disagree with some of you regarding Marcia Gay Harden´s fine work. I didn´t find manierism in her composition. She captivated me as she usually did with other notable works.Hunter and Agdashloo are good but Harden gets my vote.

Though we are talking about movies released only seven years ago, I must admit that I find it hard to really remember in details three of these performances. Part of it is that in my advanced age I must be a little senile, but maybe it also has something to do with my perception of them. At least two were by actresses I respect, but all I could come up with was that Hunter was part of an extremely hectic household, Clarkson vomited a lot and Aghdashloo was very, very noble. And very beautiful.

And then there are the two I do remember. One for being extremely dreadful, the other for being extremely good. I was quite surprised by the hostility showered on Gay Harden here. Yes, she was irritating and awkward and pushy and trying too hard – because that's exactly what she should have been. Mystic River is about the karmic position people have in life and Celeste is one of those who were destined to be peripheral. And she desperately tries to please those who are above her in this cruel social food chain. And desperation she does ooze. And it's not necessarily a pretty site. But it is masterfully manifested in this great performance and I'm happy to vote for her.

My list would also include Patricia Clarkson, but for The Station Agent, Hope Davis for American Splendor, Melissa Leo for 21 Grams and Geraldine McEwan for The Magdalene Sisters (see Damien, I finely found a nun I can relate to).

I had a hunch I'd stand alone this year, and so far at least, my hunch has proved correct.

I remember hearing an interesting opinion back in '03: that had Cold Mountain been a better movie, Zellweger might not have triumphed so easily. I wouldn't argue this outcome with any certainty -- it very well could have made her an even more prohibitive favorite. But the argument -- that had the romance really sold, Zellweger's performance would have been seen more as a sideshow waltzing in from another movie, rather than the source of energy onscreen -- is compelling. I actually think Cold Mountain is a better movie than its reputation would suggest, but Zellweger was, at best, merely amusing, and at worst, supremely annoying.

Pieces of April is the kind of ugly-looking, bland movie that makes you almost despise the whole low budget film movement entirely. But Clarkson was characteristically good in it, both funny (in the "discarding the leftovers" scene) and heartfelt (looking at herself in the mirror in the roadside bathroom). But I, too, liked her much more in The Station Agent (not to mention plenty of other movies), so I think it's a pity her only nod to date is for this. I look forward to enthusiastically voting for her sometime down the road.

I think the other three nominees are all excellent, and would have been happy to pick any of them.

At the time, my sixteen year-old self was really affected by Thirteen, because I thought it fairly honestly tapped into a lot of my own experiences from high school. Of course, I've downgraded my opinion of the film since then, but I still think Hunter is pretty terrific in it. Melanie is the type of mom who isn't sure when she's supposed to act like mother, big sister, or best friend to her daughter. And Hunter's performance, as the loving mom who begins to feel like her own imperfections are partly to blame for her child's behavior, is heartfelt and richly detailed. It's also unlike most of the characters she's played before, without being such an obvious against-type stretch. I'd likely have rooted for more than just one of her Best Actress bids, so this time I'll vote elsewhere, but this is still one of Hunter's best pieces of work.

On Oscar night, I was rooting for Aghdashloo to upset, for her enormously moving work in House of Sand and Fog, a movie I like quite a bit more than most people. As early as her first scene, you begin to sense Nadi's backstory -- years upon years of subservience to her husband, yet a dignified subservience that stems from her great love for her family and her hope for a better life outside the country that betrayed them. Her scene with Jennifer Connelly ("They will kill us...they will shoot my children") is a wrenching moment, one of many she has as the film proceeds toward its inevitable tragic finale. Aghdashloo was a great discovery for me this year (and I also thought she was delicious in a very different role on 24.)

But one of the reasons I was rooting for Aghdashloo's upset was because I knew Marcia Gay Harden had ZERO chance of winning. I'd actually wondered, after seeing Mystic River, if she might have become more of a win contender if she hadn't triumphed so recently. (Given her Globe/SAG snubbing, probably not...although she didn't get those nominations when she DID win either.) Her semi-surprising appearance on the Oscar list -- right after the equally pleasing and uncertain Aghdashloo nod -- made this category one of the happiest for me that nomination morning. And I think she's sensational in Mystic River. Her flighty, nervous, distrustful wife was a fascinating portrait of a woman whose struggle to deal with tragedy causes her to do some wrong things for all the right reasons. I know some felt she was over the top, but for me, she delivered a performance that was both technically rich and emotionally resonant. (The expression on her face in the parade sequence provides the film with a great final emotional punch.) And after not voting for her wonderful work in Pollock, I'm even more happy to cast, apparently, the sole vote for Marcia Gay Harden here.

Worthy alternates would have been Hope Davis in America Splendor and Melissa Leo in 12 Grams. (I didn't like 21 Grams as a film, but I'd have nominated three of its actors -- Leo, Watts and del Toro)

We're getting into territory where I recall the real-time arguments we had here. I very well remember the number of people (myself included) who fervently hoped there'd be an upset in this category, that Zellweger's silly Annie Oakley would not prevail. I'd liked Zellweger quite a bit in earlier movies -- had she been the one to defeat Julianne Moore a year earlier, I'd not have been quite as angry. But here she was an awful choice...a worthy follw-up to Zeta-Jones.

I don't deeply dislike any of the others. I think thirteen is a pretty routine movie -- I said at the time the plot was nearly identical to a young adult's book I'd read when I was in 8th grade -- but Holly Hunter was solid in it.

Marcia Gay Harden definitely has moments where she goes over the top, but I think she also has memorable moments, and I was pleased she got the nomination.

But the other two are my winner's circle. Shohreh Aghdashloo was a revelation -- a mature, exotic presence who seemed some amalgam of Jeanne Moreau and Melina Mercouri. She, along with Kingsley and especially Connelly, redeemed the somewhat lunatic narrative in which they were trapped. I'd have had no difficulty with her winning.

But the great Patricia Clarkson was my choice. Pieces of April is a trifling, second-rate film at best, but Clarkson is superb in it. And I have to disagree with the idea she was superior in The Station Agent. The latter film is surely better (though also quite minor), but Clarkson is never more than dependably present in it. I really wanted Clarkson to get a nomination that year -- partly in recompense for being passed over in '02 -- but I remember thinking, when The Station Agent ended, that I'd have to stretch a bit to say she deserved notice for it. With Pieces of April, I had no such qualms. I thought she was dominant throughout, with a couple of strong scenes (esp. one confrontation with Oliver Platt) that were Oscar-vintage all the way. I'm pleased to vote for her here.

The worst won. And not just the worst of this year - one of the worst ever in this category. Zellweger's Oscar is truly an embarassment, but of course it was given for reasons that don't have anything to do with talent.

I don't remember much about Marcia Gay Harden in Mystic River. She's an actress I generally like, but this probably isn't her most impressive performance.

Hunter is never bad, and she's convincing even in the not-memorable Thirteen.

Clarkson and Aghdashloo are both very good. It says alot that an actress like Clarkson - the kind of actor whom this award was originally created for - has been nominated only once, and for an obscure little movie. But she's still great in it - and the way she finds all those nuances in a character that would have been forgettable or downright flat in the hands of a lesser actress, the way she makes it by turns pathetic and funny but never contradictory, must represent a sort of triumph. I know, she's been better in other movies, but being so good in such a movie is probably an even greater achievement. Plus, I didn't like House of Sand and Fog that much either. And since this is the only place I can honor Patricia Clarkson - as they say in the Eurovision Song Contest, Italie, un point!

There are five talented actresses in this group, and there are three really bad performances here. I have liked Marcia Gay Harden a lot both in films and on stage, but she overdoes it horribly in Mystic River -- you might think this was 1957 and she was a New York Method actress making her film debut. (This is a rarity -- a lousy performance in a Clint Eastwood picture)

Pieces of April is a dreary, shoddy little movie, a less-than-negligible waste of celluloid. Its facile cynicism eventually gives way to equally facile sentimentality and Patricia Clarkson's performance fits right into it.

Renee Zellweger is even worse. I don't know what the hell to make of this performance. Mammy Yokum meets Ellie May Clampett. It's so awful that for months, David Letterman would suddenly interrupt his show by playing a line of her dialogue from the movie. Clearly a make up award for losing Best Actress the previous year, and one of the more embarrassing victories in Oscar annals.

Holly Hunter is both scary and funny in Thirteen and seems to be living as the character rather than enacting her. At the same time, there's not a great deal of depth to the woman she is portraying.

Shohreh Aghdashloo is very fine in The House of Sand and Fog, but the two great performances in the movie came from two people about whom I previously had nothing positive to say, Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly.